176 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1365 



As early as 1882 Professor Sedgwick was 

 elected a member of the Advisory Committee 

 of the U. S. Public Health Service, and for 

 nearly twenty years he maintained this con- 

 nection with national public health affairs. 

 When after the war a reserve organization 

 was created in this service, Sedgwick was 

 commissioned as assistant surgeon general. 

 A few years ago he was made a member of 

 the International Health Board, supported by 

 the Rockefeller Foundation, and thus his 

 interests became world-wide in their scope. 

 Last year he went to England as exchange 

 professor from the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology to the Universities of Cambridge 

 and Leeds — and on the eve of his departure a 

 newspaper headline very fittingly character- 

 ized him as "Ambassador of Health." 



During the past few days I have been read- 

 ing over a list of the titles of the books and 

 most important scientific papers which Sedg- 

 wick wrote between the years 1883 and 1921 — 

 about a hundred in number. If his minor 

 writings had been included, the list would 

 have been several times as long. Towards the 

 end of his life he vn-ote less. Only a few 

 weeks before his death he said to me, " I 

 sometimes get sick of talking about health; 

 every Tom, Dick and Harry is now talking 

 about it, and most of what they say is so 

 exaggerated that it casts discredit on all of 

 us who are trying to speak within the bounds 

 of sanitary science." 



And I wish to take this occasion to express 

 my own views that just as there is danger that 

 scientific research may be organized to death, 

 so there is danger that public health may be 

 organized and legislated, propagandized and 

 commercialized to the point of nullification. 

 There is danger that over striving for the 

 welfare of particular classes of people may 

 result in misfortune to the people as a whole. 

 Sensible education in the principles of healthy 

 living should be universal, but neither the 

 state nor the nation should embark upon pro- 

 grams of socialization of medicine, socializa- 

 tion of nursing or the paternalistic or mater- 

 nalistic care of the health of individuals with- 

 out first looking ahead to see where such poli- 



cies lead, socially, financially and politically. 

 The police power of the state should be used 

 severely to prevent crimes against the public 

 healtii; the advisory powers of health depart- 

 ments should be freely used, but the treasury 

 of the state should not be drawn upon to pay 

 for i)ersonal benefits or class benefits even in 

 the name of health. Public health and pri- 

 vate health are not the same, and govern- 

 ments may do for the one what they ought 

 not to do for the other. 



We Americans can not boast of the success 

 of our governments, especially the govern- 

 ments of our cities. We can not boast of our 

 governmental methods of public health ad- 

 ministration — and unfortunately our local 

 governments are not becoming more efficient 

 as they become larger. Let us not therefore 

 make the mistake of turning too many of our 

 health activities over to the governments. In 

 one thing, however, America has excelled and 

 that is its voluntary cooperative tmdertakings. 

 Let these continue to use their influence for 

 improving personal health, leaving to the gov- 

 ernments only those matters which legiti- 

 mately belong to the health of the people as a 

 whole. The time is rapidly approaching when 

 the financial problems of our cities and states 

 will overtop all others — sanitary and public 

 health problems included — when appropriations 

 of all kinds will he cut to the bone to ward 

 off insolvency or repudiation of debts. Let us 

 not make our people too dependent on their 

 governments for health protection, but let us 

 by education seek to make them protect their 

 own health, for what they pay for they will 

 value most. 



There is one other asi)ect of health ac- 

 tivities which I can not refrain from mention- 

 ing in this connection. Too much thinking 

 about one's health makes a person morbid. It 

 is possible for communities to get into the 

 same condition. After all, there is more 

 health in the world than there is sickness. I 

 tell my students that while as professional 

 health officials they must study death-rates, as 

 individuals they must look well to the life 

 rates, for except in old age the chance of 

 living is far greater than the chance of dying 



